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To perceive, discern, or decide. [Obs.] Granmer.

Having the force of a decree; determining. The will of God is either decretive or perceptive. Bates.

Nice and refined perception and discrimination; critical niceness; fastidious accuracy. That Augustan delicacy of taste which is the boast of the great public schools of England. Macaulay.

Nicely discriminating or perceptive; refinedly critical; sensitive; exquisite; as, a delicate taste; a delicate ear for music.

called "proofs;" and where agreement or disagreement is by this means plainly and clearly perceived, it is called demonstration. Locke.

Critical perception or scrutiny; judgment based on such scrutiny; esp., perception pf, or judgment concerning, motives and character. The quick eye for effects, the clear diagnosis of men's minds, and the love of epigram. Compton Reade. My diagnosis of his character proved correct. J. Payn. Differential diagnosis (Med.…

To recede and grow fainter; to become imperceptible; to vanish; -- often with out or away. Blemishes may die away and disappear amidst the brightness. Spectator.

Of obscure vision; not seeing clearly; hence, dull of apprehension; of weak perception; obtuse. Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. Job xvii. 7. The understanding is dim. Rogers.

Having dim sight; lacking perception. -- Dim"-sight`ed*ness, n.

Dullness, or want of clearness, of vision or of intellectual perception. Dr. H. More.

Force; power; -- esp. in the phrase by dint of. Now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel The dint of pity. Shak. It was by dint of passing strength That he moved the massy stone at length. Sir W. Scott.

To cease to appear or to be perceived; to pass from view, gradually or suddenly; to vanish; to be no longer seen; as, darkness disappears at the approach of light; a ship disappears as she sails from port.

To see by the eye or by the understanding; to perceive and recognize; as, to discern a difference. And [I] beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding. Prov. vii. 7. Our unassisted sight . . . is not acute enough to discern the minute texture of visible objects. Beattie…

One who, or that which, discerns, distinguishes, perceives, or judges; as, a discerner of truth, of right and wrong. A great observer and discerner of men's natures. Clarendon.

In a manner to be discerned; perceptibly; visibly. Hammond.

obtain for the first time sight or knowledge of, as of a thing existing already, but not perceived or known; to find; to ascertain; to espy; to detect. Some to discover islands far away. Shak.

Capable of being discovered, found out, or perceived; as, many minute animals are discoverable only by the help of the microscope; truths discoverable by human industry.

disguise are subject to heavy penalties. There is no passion steals into the heart more imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises, than pride. Addison.

To make distinctions; to perceive the difference; to exercise discrimination; -- with between; as, a judge distinguishes between cases apparently similar, but differing in principle.

ed; the share of a sum divided that falls to each individual; a distribute sum, share, or percentage; -- applied to the profits as appropriated among shareholders, and to assets as apportioned among creditors; as, the dividend of a bank, a railway corporation, or a bankrupt estate.